Hi Eric,
You got me thinking: Information and meaning > There are two broad classes of geospatial information. Since the end point of all geospatial rendering is human, either directly or through some modeling chain, the focus maybe should be on the human use. After all a computer doesn't care much about appearance or meaning. Maps/cartography, like any good abstraction, portray some subset of reality as a means of focus. As long as the map's creator wants to control the focus, it makes a lot of sense. Users submit to the producer's focus because it's helpful. I wonder, though, if many focus constraints are just artifacts of historical static 2D media. Maybe there are two broad classes of geospatial users. One kind wants to get the job done as fast he can and that's all. This user welcomes all the focus the map creator can provide. In essence the map creator is digesting the information to make a user's job easier. The creator invests the result with his own meaning and the user is glad for it. However, as technology changes, and modeling restraints move away from static 2D, a second type of user is emerging. This second type is more of an explorer and finds himself frustrated by a limited focus chosen by some anonymous map maker. He wants to have control of focus himself. In this case the user wants to invest meaning for himself. I think that we are somehow wired for virtual worlds when it comes to exploring, but welcome a predigested, focused, even flat world when it comes to "getting it done now!" So cartography is losing a grip here and virtual worlds are gaining ground simply because they let us explore. Here is an interesting example outside traditional cartography: <http://zoomii.com/#at=2,19054,206497> http://zoomii.com/#at=2,19054,206497 Note the slippy map like interface that lets someone move around a bookstore. It's still just 2D, but the focus is in the user's control. I don't think I'm that different from an average user who would find this more enjoyable than the standard Amazon interface. I feel more in control of my focus. I like seeing the real book cover with its relative size context. But then when I want to drill into a book community, get reviews, find a book fast, and buy it, I would probably still go to the standard Amazon interface, the novelty of just a few years back. I think geospatial/mapping/cartography/gis is facing the same juncture. New media technology that allows user controlled focus is just now available, but the older way of thinking about cartography is still alive and well. I think somehow overcoming the novelty of new media will mean finding better ways to help users find their own focus while exploring all available data, geospatial or otherwise. Users get a bigger investment in meaning, map producers less. On reflection, the propaganda element of map creation is still hovering in the background, perhaps more subtle in new media since the appearance of free will is exercised, but only within the limits of the exposed virtual world. In the zoomii world, for example, only some books are exposed and only some axis of context. Google Earth's world only exposes historical imagery at a limited resolution, and no book shelves yet. Still, it seems to be going in the right direction. thanks randy From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 7:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] beyond map mashups > So I believe a 3d environment in real time is the minimum starting > point. So I could go to something like Second Life, but that lacks the > scope and ambition of mirroring reality itself. Beware the follies of the 1:1 scale map! Maps convey meaning about reality that is something beyond information. Adding more information (mirroring reality) does not necessarily convey the meaning. The problem of the red dot and the similar debate elsewhere about the quality of "GIS maps" has to do with this lack of meaning. Humans are very good at communicating meaning (and arguably less good about communicating information). We are so good at communicating meaning that this quality is often overlooked. Computers excel at communicating information and there's a tendency among IT people to get so wrapped up in the information capabilities of the computers that they eschew meaning. > So we need to concentrate on 3d, audio, video, and the real world like > Google Earth's and Microsoft Virtual Earth's 3d modelling efforts. > Capturing data and extracting computable information, rather than > humans translating for computing convenience. There are two broad classes of geospatial information. One class focuses on cartographic products - information is generalized to facilitate communication among humans. The other is geospatial modeling - information is generalized to facilitate computer modeling of geographic processes. Beware that Google and Microsoft are really only interested in the first class of information. Their products are designed for human consumption - not for computer modeling. -Eric On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 7:04 AM, Brian Grant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: is this a fair summary of what you're looking for, Steve? geo-spatial index with following attributes: - 3 dimensional (designated regions of volume) - recursive divisions and subdivsions of regions (resolution increases with address length) - converted from lat-long (locating a single point of reference contained within universally addressable region) - resolution of the designated region based on accuracy of the location measuring device (how precise - and hopefully accurate - is your GPS performance?) if so, I am too. - Brian stephen white wrote: > On 17/06/2008, at 8:36 AM, Raj Singh wrote: >> One simple way to discuss this in the short term is to start "wanking" >> on the various spatially-enabled, Yahoo Pipes-like tools. I know this >> isn't as meta or universal as you're talking about, but it's a place >> we can mess around with coding and not just talk theory. > > > I took a couple of days before replying so that I could think of an > explanation for my problem with Pipes/mashups in this context. > > First, the points in favour of your suggestion are that removing the > map interface does generalise the information to a more general > context. The use of programming does create the flexibility to relate > information that is not reduced to a red dot on a map. > > But... :) > > The problem is that the information has already been reduced before it > can be manipulated by the code. It is no longer three dimensional, and > it is no longer surrounded by the original context. The data has been > captured and slotted into categories. > > So pipes and mashups are the valley of death that we keep rushing our > minds into, because it's not one problem. It's two different problems. > The mashup has specific interfaces to display the data it is handling. > The information needs to be the full amount of data that was captured. > > So we need to concentrate on 3d, audio, video, and the real world like > Google Earth's and Microsoft Virtual Earth's 3d modelling efforts. > Capturing data and extracting computable information, rather than > humans translating for computing convenience. > > > Sure, I could go work for companies doing that kind of stuff, but to > be a matter of routine existence it does need to be ad-free. So... > free. :) > > Steve. > > -- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > _______________________________________________ > Geowanking mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG. > Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 270.4.1/1510 - Release Date: 6/19/2008 3:21 PM _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking -- -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
_______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
